Tailored
by Fogs of Gray
Summary: There, with his heartbeat pounding insanity, Macon allowed himself to break.


This had to be done, unfortunately. Now, it was supposed to be another chapter for Inevitable, hence the 'He had lied...' bit. I know, I know! It's been a while and honestly, **this one's all over the place**. However, I gave you the best I can, under my current circumstances. If you would review, I would be much obliged.

Disclaimer: Ha! Not mine!

SPOILERS: Read through Beautiful Chaos first, hm? Otherwise, you'll be confused.

* * *

He had lied completely and thoroughly to Lena.

The Arclight was hardly a place where thoughts were possible. There was a constant beat of what he could never have; a pulsing throb of a reality he would have given anything to have. Over that, any semblance of a memory, any brief musing, was broken. Those that were conjured were inaudible, illegible, a muffled split of fear and agony. He would begin a memory for the boy, whose name he could barely remember, when he would be harshly ripped back to his cell. The visions began as abruptly as they ended, jolting Macon with an intoxicating switch of dizziness and clarity. It was all he could do to not shatter while the boy was watching. _Wate. The Wate boy._ But when the visual ended, and Macon was left in the darkness, he almost allowed himself to cry. His tired body would fail; his ears only caught the damnable pulsing, and when he attempted to deafen himself with a Cast, his muscles tightened. His skin would burn, his mind would panic, his body revolting against logic, until the Cast was successfully fended off.

When he was released, when he had felt the barest sense of escape, hope started in him. Hope because whatever was out _there_ was infinitely better than this.

* * *

His hopes had been wrong as well. The thoughts hadn't stopped. They had been a constant stream, a desperate feed of memories he had buried long ago. He had repressed them as an Incubus, hidden them and masked them by keeping busy, but when the barrier had been roughly broken he had been left floundering. Loud, insistent memories. Of Silas. Of what could pass as murder. Of abuse. Flickering scenes that would play brightly before him even as he blinked.

He ended in his study, where he was supposed to be reading up on fixing the Order. His head was humming, his entire body practically vibrating with the force of it. He couldn't keep any sort of focus. The pulsing of the Arclight had now found a place in his chest. The cruel humor wasn't lost to him.

Honestly, sometime during the earlier hours, he had given up on this endeavor of research. However, he was here still, attempting to fix what his family had shattered. His hands tightened in his hair, scratching lightly into his skin. He knew what they, the _thoughts, _were by now. His previous assumptions were entirely false. He presumed these were a chain of his most regretted actions. Oh but _no,_ it was never that simple. It was reality. The burning reality of everything he had done and now, instead of forcing them away, had to accept.

Sleep didn't come at all that night. Those who saw him the next morning would assume he was up reading. In his mind, he was a tailored tattered man trying to fix himself.

* * *

She flung herself into his arms seemingly without intent. Of course, he should have known better. His arms found their way to hold her close, as he had done not a month ago. His vest was now damp with her tears. Her form was shaking, but it didn't feel like despair. It felt like fear; cloying and slick, gripping and harsh. He waited until he could understand her attempts of sentences to allow his grip to loosen around her. Her breath was hot and thick against his shoulder, the ends of her hair tickling his wrists. "You're it, aren't you?" The accusation behind her inquiry made him flinch mentally.

"I am what, Lena?"

"The One Who is Two." Her tone hadn't lost its sharpness. Lena refused to look at him. "The one who has to die so the Order can fix itself."

"I don't believe I am. Lena, it's al-"

"Don't." She shook her head slightly. Her eyes met his then. "It's not alright this time, Uncle M. This...this *thing* is irreversible."

"Yes, well, so is death." Her eyes wrinkled in a small smile. That grin disappeared too quickly.

"I can't lose you again. Not after..."

He chose this moment to intervene. "Lena, we're going to be fine. If it is me," her shoulders quivered, "you will move on. I know it will be _unpleasant_, but you will survive."

Her voice was small when she replied, unlike her usual confident self. "How do you know?" His lips quirked.

"You'll find there are few things I don't know, Lena. I know you are strong. I know that you've lost me once already, distressingly. I know, for a fact, I won't leave you anytime soon. I know I would never intentionally hurt you, and I know you feel the same towards me." He pulled away to look at her. "I know you will live perfectly well if this scenario does happen to play out."

"But you'll be-" A part of him protested at the thought.

"Regrettably. The universe will have to come up with something new, however. It's brilliant the first time, freeing almost; most likely it will be incredibly dull the next."

"Uncle M-" Her voice was unsteady, a trembling mess of tones caught between panicked and reprimanded.

"Hush. Now, Lena, I'm going to return a question you asked me months ago. How likely is it going to be me?"

"Almost certain." Her eyebrows furrowed.

He met her gaze with a sense of surreality. "Lena, you are both Light and Dark. Mister Breed is a Caster Incubus hybrid. Miss Durand is a part of both Mortal and Caster worlds." His words were serious, but an almost joking glint claimed his eyes. "All of my siblings are a healthy mix of Incubus and Caster genetics." Lena's back began to loosen. "Of course, that does include me, perhaps more centrally than I would like to imagine. There is quite a chance it will not have to be me, but another who we are quite fond of."

"I'm scared it will be you." He was about to retort when her finger came to his lips. "I just got you back, Uncle M. I finally accepted that _you _are really here. I can't-"

"At worst, I'll be temporarily displaced." She nodded swiftly, hesitance visible in every nerve.

* * *

Lena was crying again. Macon had noticed the boy's sacrifice whole-heartedly, but Lena was...reluctant. She was constantly murmuring to herself. Insistently dogging a path to _nowhere. _A nowhere he knew better than he hoped anyone would have to. A nowhere that had haunted him persistently throughout his Incubus years. He had put his foot down, finally, and confronted her.

They came together in a harsh crash of fate. The pent up energy in Ravenwood was crackling in air, jumping on their skin, bitter on the tongue and heavy in mind. She had reacted first, this time. He had easily put forth a calm reply. The resulting words were halting.

"Lena, I-"

"You have never dealt with feelings. You weren't _alive_, Uncle M!" She shook her head and allowed a humorless laugh. "What could you _possibly_ know, when you felt nothing?" The Cast was instinctual, a primal reaction to her blatantly irate demeanor and energy.

The relief, the freedom of the act was invigorating. For a moment, he lost himself in the strength, the dominance he possessed. All of the pain, the emotional trauma roughly forced away into the emptiness of air for her to experience how wrong she was. The barrier he had been looking for was finally noticed. For a brilliant second, it was silent again.

Macon came to his senses in a slow decline of adrenaline. Lena was thrown across the room, hands pressed against the wall, her eyes a wild, gorgeous chaos. Macon was standing still, his hands trembling. He hadn't struck her, not physically, but made the roughest intrusion into her mind, forcing past emotions on her. She hadn't retaliated, not verbally, but her face said everything she couldn't bear to. Tears welled in her eyes, catching on her eyelashes for the barest of moments before slipping down her cheeks. She dashed out before he could try to stop her.

That night, in the absence of thought and the presence of his damnable heartbeat, Macon did something he never had the chance to do. Macon allowed thin tears to slip down his face. That night, he cried for what he had and almost ruined.


End file.
